Friday, April 24, 2009

I have been called
pretentious, and having spent most of my life trying to appear smarter,
prettier, and more successful and interesting than I am, I'd have to agree. Of
course that is relative to how smart, pretty, successful and interesting I
really am, so I don't think my pretension is particularly psychotic, but
perhaps that last statement was.

How does all of
this relate to mom's lesson #4, "things lay, people lie," which she
taught me a million times? Well, mom was all about appearances, and grammar was
one of the many rungs on the ladder to being smarter, prettier, and more
successful and interesting. Mom believed that grammar, if executed poorly,
doomed you to being "common," which in her mind was the seventh level
of hell.

Conversely, she
believed that if one executed grammar well, one could avoid the hell of
commonality. By the way, I never heard my mother say hell, or damn, or any
other expletive other than "deeee-ern," which wasn't even
"darn," but when said signaled unparalleled anger. Not being common
is lesson #5, so I'm not going to get into that one just yet, but like
"the uncertainly of life (lesson #2)," "not being common"
is an overarching theme in the one hundred things my mother taught me a million
times. Oh, and for the record, not all of my mother's lessons stuck; I know
that. Click on Read More Below...

OK, back to laying
and lying. Mother was always subtle in her lessons. She would never come right
out and say that people are liars, and I honestly don't think she thought they
were. In fact, I think that my penchant for believing that everyone is honest,
or at least "means well," probably comes from my mother, who I never
heard say an unkind word about anyone (not even son-in-laws, and she had four).
Think about that for a minute. I never heard my mother say an unkind thing
about another person. How many people can lay claim to that characteristic?
Don't get me wrong, my mother wasn't a saint, and there are times that she just
about drove me to matricide (have you read Almost Moon" by Alice
Sebold?), but she did have some very admirable traits. Interestingly enough, I
think that she stayed out of trouble, or retained her aura of goodness, mostly
because she never said much of anything (until she turned 70 - another story),
which brings us back to lying.

Have you ever
noticed what a strange word lying is (lie, lying, liar)? I want to know who was
in charge of derivations when this word was invented! People do lie. There are
so many different types of lies aren't there? I'm probably missing some, but it
seems that there are: 1. Outright, malicious, hurt-someone lies, 2. I'm-deluding-myself
lies, 3. Lies of omission, 4. Little white lies, 5. Lies told in the act of sparing
someone’s feelings, and 6. Lies of exaggeration. I participate in 2, 3, 4, 5
& 6, but I forgive myself for these lies because they aren't malicious. My
husband seems only to participate in number 2. He is painfully honest and,
honestly, I think that although the truth sometimes hurts, I never have to try
to figure out what he means or if he's being truthful/honest. I tell people
that with Crouse, what you see is what you get. I think that I could give up
all lies except number 5. Reflecting on the "what a terrible web we
weave..." I don't really think that some lies are that terrible, except
for the malicious ones, and the ones we tell ourselves, and the exaggerations,
and the omissions, and true, little white ones can turn into dark hairy ones
easily enough. Well, OK, lying is bad.

What do you lie
about? Are you lying to yourself when you say that you don't lie? Have I
correctly used "lie" throughout this post? Is my mother rolling over
in her grave at my poor grammar? I haven't even talked about laying, but my
primitive mind seems to only relate to that term sexually, so we'll just skip
it.

Perhaps
I should just take a lesson from mom and shut up - at least until my next post,
which as mentioned above, will be mom's lesson #5, "Never be common."

5 comments:

SueAnn,I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the picture of Momy on your blog! I wish you could keep it up so when others are reading what your mother taught you, they can put the face and the writings together. I miss her so much!!

I am in full agreement with her belief concerning grammar. I've always been very aware that the words coming from my mouth and heard for the first time by someone else is the only chance I get to (hopefully) prove I AM an intelligent person.

I'm hoping to add in some way to your thoughts because I have no doubt what Momy taught my mother, she's passed on to me through the years.

She had to work very hard on me. Now i feel sorry for her. The worst student for languages and grammar. After her lessons the pain reminded me of that cop in the French Connection when he was coming off heroin.

About Me

Good Day and welcome to the Gals – Very Smart Gals blog. My name is SueAnn Wade-Crouse, and I am a very proud mother of three and grandmother of eight, and have been happily married for 20+ years to an extraordinary man. I am also a development consultant/grant writer, over-reader, camper and closet recluse. I have walked on the coals of life and survived and become stronger from that which hasn’t killed me. My life is blessed with abundant and magnificent family and friends. Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope that you will post a comment, subscribe, and email the site to your friends. Lust for Life.

About the Very Smart Gals

What the heck is Gals – Very Smart Gals? I originally created the Very Smart Gals blog because I wanted, or perhaps needed, to record my memories of my recently departed mom, Willie Belle Forbes Wade. Willie was a wile old gal who taught her four daughters and one son many things, not the least of which was to make friends with smart women. Since she was a schoolteacher by trade, she tended to teach her life lessons over and over (the reinforcement principal), so I decided a good way to memorialize my mom and capture her wisdom was to repeat the things she taught me. Voila! “One Hundred Things My Mom Taught Me A Million Times,” the anchor of the Gals – Very Smart Gals blog, was born.

Another thing Willie taught us was to read, read, read. Aware of my reading addiction, friends often ask, “What’s good?” So I began reviewing books on my Gals – Very Smart Gals blog as well, even drawing comments from some of the authors of books reviewed.

Then in the fall of 2009, one of the 350+ gals on my list of Very Smart Gals said, “Who are the Very Smart Gals? Why are you keeping all of them to yourself?” So, I began a series of lunches and happy hours to introduce 3-6 women at each get together. The outcome was magical and difficult to define. There were women I had known for 20 years I didn’t know knew each other. There were rediscovered friendships. Gals even discovered shared distant relatives! And each lunch or happy hour ended with very smart gals knowing more very smart gals. The Very Smart Gals live all over the US; they’re every age and every color; they’re wealthy and barely scraping by. In fact, their only common denominator, other than being female, is “smart.”

I also tend to be reclusive, so getting the Very Smart Gals together is part of my self-induced therapy, to get me out of my shell.

So what’s the agenda of the Very Smart Gals; what is the deeper meaning? Very Smart Gals is about women appreciating, honoring and supporting each other, and according to wile Willie, that is important enough.

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